Pokemon Jams

after 300 hours in the platinum factory i developed an affinity for its music

before i go into detail about which tracks i love, i have a request. i was recently watching a ruby TAS, after team magma frees groudon and maxie is on the surface realizing all he's wrought, this really eerie and beautiful tune plays. i think it continues as the overworld music (at least in that area) until you handle your beastly business in the sootopolis cave. what is the name of that track?

speaking of that tas i had a weird moment of meta-nostalgia when you find captain stern in the slateport museum and that dreamy version of the ss anne theme plays. i was flung back into a 14 year old remembering when he was a 9 year old.

Moderator

This one is not *directly* from a Pokémon game, but a Pokémon tune regardless. Simply the best of D/P music. Starts with the thundering piano, then continues with the "hammer meets anvil" bass while the piano continues to chunk out that bizarre, yet epic tune. I learned it on piano once, but have forgot most of it since.

Also trying to explain my disdain for D/P music. Take, as an example, Route 205, the example MWL posted.

The first ten seconds are skippy and country-like, as if something festive is going on (rodeo, race, general yee-haw).

Then a ten-second bridge, which neither follows the speed nor the melody of the previous part of the song...

...into another skippy, upbeat part which sort of follows the beginning. But the entire song is entirely without coherence, the melody easy to forget. What is this theme supposed to convey? Randomness? Generic "now we are in Sinnoh" feeling? All the route/town themes feel like this. None of them sets you in any special mood, it's all just "OK, here we are. This is the background music. It's only here because silence would be weirder."

Contrast, for instance, Route 201. It begins with a couple of measures leading up to an ear-worm of a melody, which then repeats at a sensible point. The song just feels like it belongs early in the adventure. The humble beginning. It's full of the naïve sense of adventure from early-game, before you learn that something is wrong in Sinnoh.

Or, take Route 11 from Gen. I. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRctqZpTM8
Picture the rolling plains in Southern Kanto. Tall grass from horizon to horizon, a breeze from the ocean rustling the entire plain. The sun is shining, Pidgey are singing, and in the distance you can see a flock of Ponyta running along the border fence of the Safari Zone. It's one of those days that make you feel that everything up till now was worth it, just for standing here and looking at the plain. The very picture you had in your head when you decided to set out on your journey. The very sensation of being a trainer.
This song has a clear and distinct context: Wide-open, optimistic epicness. It's 8-bit, yet you can imagine the trumpets and strings as clear as day. Listen to the Pokémon Stadium version of the theme. Clear use of instruments. The song has an easy melody despite being orchestrated.

Another example: Route 216. What is this mess? Where are we supposed to be? What happens at 0:44? What is this song supposed to depict? The choice of instrument also appears to be totally random.

Route 225. What the crap? I can't even remember where in the game this is. I can't determine the genre of the melody. Random autotuning? This game was just so forgettable.

Route 24. The adventure has started. Things aren't only easy. You have to do your own laundry, there isn't always a dry place to sleep, and you sometimes go all day without meeting anybody. It's a challenge, it has its ups and downs, but you don't regret anything. This is life in the field. You've become on good terms with your growing team, and your starter Pokémon has become a close friend already. You begin to get the hang of organizing your bag, and how to prepare the field rations efficiently. You're starting to realize what it is like being a trainer, and you like it so far.

Route 104. Here comes the king of the world! Just a few days into your adventure, and you're already overlooking the sea from the cliffs west of Petalburg. The weather is brilliant, the breeze plays with your hair, your Pokémon are happy, and your Pokémon have grown a lot stronger since you left Littleroot. You have even caught a couple more, and started to train them. The people you've met so far have been really nice. Man, training Pokémon is awesome! On to Rustboro!

Etc. The D/P music is, with a few exceptions, rather soulless. Most of the tunes don't convey a setting, or illustrate what's going on around you. Listening to it doesn't bring back any memories for me. The Route/town themes all become too boring, too generic.
That being said, Black/White does it mostly right, though. Had I been ten years younger, I would have been buzzing with nostalgia upon hearing its music already.

EDIT: I'd like to be proven wrong. Please try to hammer some sense of nostalgia into me. I might view this with the dark-tinted glasses of prejudice, perhaps Pokémon stopped being as magic for me some time during Gen. III, and that it didn't become nostalgic until recently. Perhaps D/P happened to be made during an unlucky period for me, those pesky early-teen years where the magic of childhood fades, but the nostalgia filter isn't put properly in place yet.

Mario With Lasers: Problem solved. I ended up obsessing over that woman and on her shit list (which continues to this day). One person even VMed me asking me who she was, and in hindsight, being able to give her first and last names as well as her city of residence was probably a bad sign.

I used to know where a 9-minute loop of the giratina battle theme could be found...oh well. Settle for this 18-minute extended edition of the lake guardian theme. (comments are pretty lulzy as well)

[youtube]Cu4lEbTa9T0&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
The gym theme, again, is solid, but the intro sounds like what a Pokemon parody might do to try and sound like the intro to the Pokemon trainer battle theme without actually infringing copyright (namely, by lowering the last note of each bar instead of continuing the rising phrase established by the other 2 notes). Without context, it'd admittedly be okay. With the context of the RBY classic, though, it just feels... off.

[youtube]USUGjKmP2aY[/youtube]
And the champion theme. Holy crap. Technically, my beef isn't with the intro - it's actually somewhat well-done here, if only because it doesn't stray too far from its source material like the gym battle theme does (i.e., it preserves rising phrases instead of lowering the last note of each bar just to make it sound "different"). No, my beef is with the beginning of the track proper. What better music to accompany the biggest battle in the game than the audio warble of an old VHS tape? Seriously, why do they dip down so low in that part? It almost feels like they're making the part move just because it has to move, and they don't really care where it goes. It's awful, it doesn't fit in, and it's just really awkward-sounding.

That being said, there is one track that has a pretty decent intro imo:

[youtube]KzsfUdZEi2c[/youtube]
Still the same cookie-cutter 3-3-2 rhythm as all the other intros, but that's not really bad, since it's an easy and popular way to create rhythmic tension. This intro does manage to distinguish itself with a very exotic use of phrygian mode in the melody and a bass riff that's more than the boring 2-note oscillating "doo-dee doo-dee" found everywhere else in Pokemon music. Unlike other intros mentioned in this post, it's not trying too hard to be similar to, but distinct from, some classic source material. And it shows with a vibrant character of its own.

Personally I would post just about every track ever here, but one of the best for me is Route 120 from R/S/E - it's so triumphant, and really has a sense of adventure to it.

Another "adventure-y" song is Route 38 from Crystal (and G/S too I guess) which remained stuck in my head for years - my mother heard me humming it ages after I stopped playing Crystal and said she remembered me humming along back then too, lol.

I'd also add all of Colloseum's soundtrack.

Perhaps later I'll post some songs from spinoffs like Ranger.

For now, have this:
[youtube]TDUaJTl1hZc[/youtube]
No really, listen to it, even if it's from the typing game!

This is a pretty cool mix of the Gym Leader theme from Pokemon Stadium. I remember turning on the N64 early in the morning with my Pokemon Blue and heading into the Prime Cup to take on what I thought were the toughest trainers available. Oh those days...

Quite harsh. But I cannot disagree. I like Route 201 and 205 but, as I said, I usually don't pay attention to route themes so I can't say much about the others... but shit like that Route 216 shows why I have even more problems remembering DPPt route music, hah.

after 300 hours in the platinum factory i developed an affinity for its music

before i go into detail about which tracks i love, i have a request. i was recently watching a ruby TAS, after team magma frees groudon and maxie is on the surface realizing all he's wrought, this really eerie and beautiful tune plays. i think it continues as the overworld music (at least in that area) until you handle your beastly business in the sootopolis cave. what is the name of that track?

speaking of that tas i had a weird moment of meta-nostalgia when you find captain stern in the slateport museum and that dreamy version of the ss anne theme plays. i was flung back into a 14 year old remembering when he was a 9 year old.

Click to expand...

Duuuuuuude.

[youtube]kzeGusU8z_s[/youtube]

I was scared shitless the first time I heard it. Ruby was the first Pokémon game I played with zero spoilers, and it was coincidentally the first following the current "save the world" formula. I'm not going to forget Groudon's storyline anytime soon, lol. Hell, in one moment I was an 11-year-old facing an ecoterrorist trying to awaken a mythical beast capable of expanding the landmass, only for it to escape, have all that suspense with no background music where some random Magma speaks with Maxie on the phone about how shit has gone down, and then everybody gets back to the surface only to face... this... and in the other, I have to fucking battle the mythical beast of ancient lore and shit in the so-called Cave of Origin, where life begins, or else the whole world will die to this music Groudon's Drought.

Mario With Lasers: Problem solved. I ended up obsessing over that woman and on her shit list (which continues to this day). One person even VMed me asking me who she was, and in hindsight, being able to give her first and last names as well as her city of residence was probably a bad sign.

[youtube]Cu4lEbTa9T0&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
The gym theme, again, is solid, but the intro sounds like what a Pokemon parody might do to try and sound like the intro to the Pokemon trainer battle theme without actually infringing copyright (namely, by lowering the last note of each bar instead of continuing the rising phrase established by the other 2 notes). Without context, it'd admittedly be okay. With the context of the RBY classic, though, it just feels... off.

[youtube]USUGjKmP2aY[/youtube]
And the champion theme. Holy crap. Technically, my beef isn't with the intro - it's actually somewhat well-done here, if only because it doesn't stray too far from its source material like the gym battle theme does (i.e., it preserves rising phrases instead of lowering the last note of each bar just to make it sound "different"). No, my beef is with the beginning of the track proper. What better music to accompany the biggest battle in the game than the audio warble of an old VHS tape? Seriously, why do they dip down so low in that part? It almost feels like they're making the part move just because it has to move, and they don't really care where it goes. It's awful, it doesn't fit in, and it's just really awkward-sounding.

That being said, there is one track that has a pretty decent intro imo:

[youtube]KzsfUdZEi2c[/youtube]
Still the same cookie-cutter 3-3-2 rhythm as all the other intros, but that's not really bad, since it's an easy and popular way to create rhythmic tension. This intro does manage to distinguish itself with a very exotic use of phrygian mode in the melody and a bass riff that's more than the boring 2-note oscillating "doo-dee doo-dee" found everywhere else in Pokemon music. Unlike other intros mentioned in this post, it's not trying too hard to be similar to, but distinct from, some classic source material. And it shows with a vibrant character of its own.

Moderator

[youtube]Gx8NdaGvsBI[/youtube]
So I'm messing around in Mistralton City, not going into any battles and I noticed that this song gets really awesome. Around 0:50 is where it really gets cool with the flute. It's half epic journey, half dance.

^I feel the exact same way with that credits theme, and I can't explain it? It's not like the GSC credits theme was hugely memorable to me.

[youtube]XYQBUtLbnt4[/youtube]
A lot of DPP's battle themes are overly repetitive and quite forgettable IMHO, but this certainly breaks the mold. I think it's got a great sense of chaos and difficulty which suits the Commanders really well. It has quite an impact when Jupiter's Skuntank is decimating your team in Platinum Nuzlockes, anyway...

[youtube]BtYpPKwua_E[/youtube]
Best Gym Leader theme ever? I do like the original RBY theme and the Kanto Leader theme in HGSS too though.

Ruiner of Alph

Somewhat mysterious, somewhat spooky, this song was perfectly suited for the first in-game area to be simultaneously cut off from and connected to the main world. It also has a sort of subtle but really cool buildup that I just adore ^.^

Someone came up with the idea that this one is chill compared to RGB or FRLG is because those times you were a young trainer and the forest was scary, but in GS and HGSS you have been everywhere and it's a nice stroll

And now to actually contribute, a 15-minute loop of the weather crisis music from Emerald. As the description notes, it's the drizzle theme from Sapphire at the pace (I want to say BPM) of the drought theme from Ruby. Two for one...?

[youtube]rj9hVFSKceQ[/youtube]

@RedMeowth: Fuck you. I've gotten every other silver symbol (fuck going for gold) and the closest I've ever got to Anabel was the dude before her. :(